You'd have to visit a hangar...

TO SEE THE ENOLA GAY TODAY,

August 4, 1985|Mike Howard

TO SEE THE ENOLA GAY TODAY, you'd have to visit a hangar owned by the Smithsonian Institution in Silver Hill, Md., outside Washington, D.C. There, on the floor, the fuselage cut in two and the wings leaning against a wall, lies the first plane to drop the atomic bomb.

It's an enormous aircraft, with a wing span of 141 feet and fuselage of 93 feet -- simply too big to be displayed in the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum. That is the official answer to why the plane is not more prominently featured.

''Our problem is that we don't have a building large enough to display it,'' explains Rita Cipalla, head of Public Affairs for Air and Space. ''The wing span of the plane is longer than our museum is wide.

''Our policy is that we insist on displaying planes indoors and intact,'' she continues. ''From our viewpoint, the plane is here because of its historical significance, and we are displaying it as best we are presently able. We are looking for larger space.''

The Enola Gay is available for viewing seven days a week, but visitors must make an appointment or join a scheduled tour. Some observers believe that space is not the only consideration behind the less-than-eminent position given to the plane by the museum, which has had it since 1949.

''I think it's basically politics,'' counters Paul W. Tibbets. ''I had occasion to talk with representatives of the State Department, who said we can't afford to offend the Japanese. Now, this presumes that the restoration of that plane makes something of a shrine out of it, and that we would be insulting the Japanese by leaving the belief that we're looking up to the bombing as a great act.''

Tibbets, of course, is not devoid of emotional attachment to the Enola Gay. He put it through rigorous testing after it was delivered to the Pacific, and it responded beautifully. He and his crew -- who also included bombardier Maj. Thomas W. Ferebee, a career military man who later retired in the Orlando area -- kept it meticulously maintained; some came to regard it as their own plane. Tibbets named it after his mother (see page 26).

Nor was any expense spared in the original design of the B-29 Superfortress, a model which, at the end of World War II, were the largest airplanes in the world. It was stable enough for the 9,000-pound, 12-foot-long uranium bomb, nicknamed ''Little Boy,'' to be armed in flight. It was maneuverable enough to perform the 155-degree right turn to get it away from the blast. And strong enough to withstand the shock waves that sped from the purple mushroom cloud above Hiroshima. Nine miles away, the jolt was as if ''some giant had struck the plane with a telephone pole.'' The Enola Gay survived and radioed a coded message of success back to its Tinian Island base: ''82 V 670. Able, Line 1, 2, 6, 9.''

A short time later, President Harry S Truman was able to announce, ''This is the greatest thing in history.''

Not long ago, E.T. Wooldridge, chairman of the Smithsonian's Aeronautics Department, said that plans are in the works to display the Enola Gay in a new building at Washington's Dulles Airport. That's up to six years away, however; perhaps longer without congressional approval.

What would Tibbets like to see done with the airplane? While he seeks no quarrel with the Smithsonian, he prefers that it be made more accessible to the public there, or at another location -- Strategic Air Command headquarters, in Omaha; or the Atomic Museum, in Albuquerque, N.M.; or at the Air Force Museum, in Dayton, Ohio (home of Bock's Car, the B-29 that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki).

''If that isn't a historical piece, there is no historic piece,'' Tibbets says. ''It introduced nuclear warfare to the world.''